Marlins ride Ricky Nolasco to battle rain, Braves for 6-3 win

Too bad for Marlins fans he might be someone else’s ace before the week is out.

With constant chatter about an impending trade involving him serving as a backdrop to a rain-soaked, mid-week outing at Turner Field, the veteran right-hander had one of his best outings of the season. It turned out being one of the more memorable starts in Marlins history, too.

“He gave us a chance. He made his pitches,” Marlins manager Mike Redmond said. “That pretty much sums up Ricky with the way he’s handled everything this year.”

Paced by seven strikeouts in a seven-inning, no-walk effort, Nolasco factored heavily in Miami’s 6-3 win over the division-leading Braves. One night after an 11-3 blowout loss, the victory has the Marlins entering Thursday’s series finale seeking their second consecutive series win. If they get it, this will only mark the second time this season they have claimed back-to-back series.

“We’ve taken a few tough losses, but we’ve always been able to bounce back,” Redmond said. “I always think that in this game, you’ve got to have a short-term memory. Our guys have been able to do that.”

Of all the strikeouts Nolasco had, the one he was asked most about after the game was his milestone-setting sixth one.

As the Marlins held onto a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, the Braves tried to post a two-out rally following Freddie Freeman’s single into left-center. Facing the thick of Atlanta’s order, Nolasco had atall task in order to prevent the base-hit from snowballing into something more.

To get his team out of the inning, he had to shut down Brian McCann, a power hitter who has owned Nolasco all his career. Two innings before, during McCann’s previous at-bat, the Atlanta catcher touched up the Marlins starter by lining a hard drive into the first row of seats beyond the right field fence. A two-pitch solo blast, the homer was the eighth McCann had hit off Nolasco; the most he has off any major-league pitcher.

McCann’s sixth-inning at-bat went a lot differently.

After a strike, a ball, an errant throw behind the runner at first that ended up putting Freeman on third base, and two more strikes, McCann became the 1,000th strikeout victim of Nolasco’s career. As thefranchise’s all-time strikeout leader entering the game, Nolasco became the first Marlin pitcher to accomplish the feat when he got McCann flailing on a 73 mph curve.

“That’s kind of funny that the 1,000th ‘K’ would be against the guy that’s given me the most problems of my whole career,” Nolasco said, laughing. “At least I can say that. I can’t say much against him, but atleast I can say that.”

In addition to Nolasco’s performance, Miami was powered by leadoff hitter Justin Ruggiano’s 2-for-4 night, as well as catcher Jeff Mathis’ two RBI.

Ruggiano, who got the start in left field for the struggling Juan Pierre, gave Miami its 3-2 lead in the fifth when he placed a flat 1-0 fastball into the glove of a fan sitting about 15 feet beyond the left field fence.Nolasco, who had worked a seven-pitch two-out walk the batter before, extended the inning for Ruggiano’s big hit.

“I was really impressed with his at-bat. He kind of fired me up,” Ruggiano said. “I was pumped. That was a great at-bat. It really gave us a chance.

Ruggiano’s three-run homer preceded an Adeiny Hechavarria seventh-inning RBI single, and Mathis’ eighth-inning two-RBI single that gave the Marlins a much-needed cushion.

As the steady rain — which didn’t ease throughout the duration of the game’s two hours and 46 minutes — started pelting the playing surface even more into the latter innings, Atlanta’s grounds crew caused a pair of brief delays to fix the muddy conditions that were developing. One of those delays came just before the start of the home half of the ninth. It resulted in Miami reliever Mike Dunn waiting a couple of minutes for quick-dry to be packed onto the mound.

When Dunn finally got to pitch, he surrendered hits to two of the first three batters he faced. One of them was former Marlin Dan Uggla, who was batting under .200 coming into the at-bat.

One batter later, closer Steve Cishek came on for his 16th save. After eventually allowing a run-producing two-out single up the middle, Cishek induced a ground ball to end the game. He now has 10 saves since June 1.

Given the difficult conditions Mother Nature and baseball’s trade gossips handed him, Nolasco had his clubhouse buzzing about his performance.

“If that was going on with me, I would probably be a wreck,” Ruggiano said. “That’s tough. I’ve got a family to take care of. He’s handled it well. All of us know that at any second we could be traded anywhere, but him especially. All the media has been on him to handle his business, and he does. I’m just really impressed.”